How start-ups are giving bigger brands a run for their money with high-quality content

There are many reasons why a content marketing game plan is crucial for brands. Being one of the most cost-effective strategies is one of the reasons why it has become even more crucial for start-up companies in particular. And the way start-ups are going about content marketing is noteworthy. One example is the show" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> TVF Aspirants by Unacademy. 

Content has become a key differentiator for start-ups when compared to established big brands. But how is it that start-ups have managed to craft high-quality content in such early years of their existence, while established brands are still struggling to allocate a minimum budget to content marketing? BuzzInContent.com finds out!

Rishabh Shekhar

This happened as the focus of most start-ups and brands changed from content being a checklist to a necessity, said Rishabh Shekhar, Co-Founder and COO, Pepper Content.

“What has changed is the importance that content holds in the minds of the leaders. When founders of the company insist on the highest of standards for anything that the company puts out, it gets ingrained into how every employee thinks and writes. This legacy trickles down through every level of the company dynamic and over time marketers have realised how much we need to care about each piece of our publishable material — whether it's on a blog or an info-graphic. Past standards of ‘doing good enough’ no longer apply and everyone feels responsible for upholding these new standards which brings out the best in us all,” he said.

When leaders at every level measure their own performance against content marketing metrics, they maintain high levels of quality throughout the entire company. As a result, this mindset trickles down to serve as an example for everyone else on staff, and grows exponentially over time. This has a huge domino effect and he believes this will rapidly change the way brands do content ideation, strategy and distribution.

The impact that content marketing can have on a company's top line, customer base and brand awareness is now well established. However not everyone has understood this.

Shekhar added, “We need to understand that content marketing is also evolving, combining both old school and the new-age style of doing it. Content will soon become a big differentiator and will significantly impact brand recall as we move towards a future where every company will have a chief content officer.”

In this age of digital and social media, content has become key to any brand marketing strategy. If you are catering to Gen-Z and millennials, you are in the race to grab attention. Moreover, as a start-up, the journey is a little more challenging since you are competing with established brands.

Shrey Badhani

Hence, Shrey Badhani, Co-Founder, Kapiva, said content can be a huge differentiator.

Kapiva’s content marketing strategy is centred on its audience. Recently, it has co-created content with celeb nutritionist Pooja Makhija as its audience is very interested in how diet influences health and what fixes they can make to address their specific lifestyle issue. This content led to the brand doubling its daily followers' addition rate because it catered to what the audience was looking for. In fact, it helped to generate over 4.5 mn impressions via the brand campaign in the first week the campaign itself across three platforms—Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Badhani believes it’s all about playing with data and insights. In today’s day and age where personalisation is driving purchasing decisions, one has to tap into the power of data analytics.

“Engagement via owned platforms is helping start-ups generate incredible insights. These real-time insights — what drives them, their preferences, and inclinations—are empowering start-ups to mould their strategies. It is much faster and accurate in comparison to traditional methods of marketing. Start-ups like ours also focus on providing content across all customer touchpoints, not just social media or blogs,” he added.

Although in the past few years, an increasing number of brands are now ditching the traditional approach and are opting for innovative, out-of-the-box ideas and content strategies that would strike a chord with audiences. And if one wants the brand to stand out, it is important that it has focus on creating uniform content for your marketing strategy that will be shared across different platforms.

Ashish Bajaj

And quite a few start-ups have successfully nailed it when it comes to deriving distinguished content, said Ashish Bajaj, Head of Marketing, Partnerships and PR, MediBuddy.

Bajaj said most start-ups are willing to experiment and are not shy of trying new things. And this allows them to explore ideas and curate high-quality content.

Monica Thakur

Monica Thakur, Founder and Director, SleepyPanda, said start-ups follow a micromanagement content creation process to ensure quality content output. 

The brand plans to increase investment up to 20% in the quarter, which will total its investment up to 40% in content marketing.

Content marketing helping start-ups not only with building an audience but also scaling up business

Positioning the brand in front of the audience in an engaging manner automatically scales the top line for most businesses. 

There won’t be any better way to scale up app downloads and generate high brand recall than the IPL campaigns which start-up brands such as Cred, Dream11 and PharmEasy did. The app downloads and share of voice numbers were crazy and it makes perfect sense to invest in engaging content strategies, said Shekhar.

Explaining the ROI impact of well-defined content strategies across paid media, he added, “Most brands who work with us have seen a 2X impact in the ROI from paid channels ever since they started investing in high quality content — ad copies/banners, website journeys and retargeting communications. To spend the same and still get 2x the business, clearly shows the impact content marketing can have.”

The more engaging the content, the more conversations one can drive. This leads to not just building a deeper connection with the audience, but also derives in-depth insights, said Badhani.

“These in-depth insights are valuable information when it comes to making critical business decisions. These decisions include new segment launches, new markets, and much more,” he added.

Its content marketing strategy has enabled Kapiva to identify what specific lifestyle problems consumers feel most challenged by, thus creating wholesome content that addresses their need-gaps and queries like how a product is made, what goes into it, how it helps, how to use it, etc.

Bajaj, too, agreed that curating content based on an understanding of the audience helps brands resonate and create trust factor that helps scale up the business.

Thakur said creating bizarre but relevant content like no one else is creating can really help the brand stand out and generate regular readers/consumers. 

Lessons for bigger brands

It is often seen that bigger brands or established traditional companies are too rigid in their approach. They generally have a well-defined marketing playbook, which ensures they're consistent with the content they post across multiple platforms.

However a risky mistake they often make is not being open to change.

“It's important to bring ideas across into this age where it's critical to have a fresh outlook on the content you're creating. A relevant company in today's world must be watching out for every kind of opportunity that makes its story interesting without losing the focus of your overall strategy. The start-ups we have worked with are nimble in their approach towards real-time content marketing around current events. Another important yet simple lesson would be ‘treat content creation as storytelling’. Each content type should be created and distributed across audience cohorts using a different approach. Whether it is through social media creatives, videos, blogging, website journeys or just plain old written content — when you acknowledge your true presence within the public eye and masterfully tell your story, it attracts customer eyeballs and when that happens, there is nothing standing between you and success,” he said.

Some established brands are hesitant to step out of their comfort zones and dabble into something new as they have their own set of strategies that have worked pretty well for them.

Bajaj advised brands to try adopting recent trends to stay relevant and connected with audiences. In contemporary times, the amount of money spent on a marketing campaign has very little effect on ensuring a campaign's success. Audiences want to see campaigns that are engaging, eccentric and content-oriented.

In a nutshell, it is all about being agile and relevant, experts said.

“You have to strike a balance between being a first mover while creating a connection. The aim is to build a willingness to connect within the audience. Established brands have relied on traditional strategies and mass-connect platforms intending to reach more people. However, start-ups believe in being relevant in the moment and creating a niche. They rely on data and insights to build innovations and organically seep into conversations,” said Badhani.

Thakur said brands need to understand that it doesn't always have to be educational content. 

She said, “Sometimes it is better just to let the creativity flow and subtly advertise the product using the kind of content people like to read and share. This will help the brand rack up millions of views and scale up the business too.”